Recent Project Engineering History
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CONSTELLATION DATA SYSTEMS ACTIVITIES 1996 - 2016
Apr 1996 – Aug 2015; Constellation Data Systems, Inc (Cincinnati Ohio)
Management of teams as large 12 engineers, technicians and program managers, managed budgets and schedules.
Through engineering leadership and hands-on management of deployment and support, Enabled key client (automobile breathalyzer) growth of annual revenues from $12M initially, to over $100M, culminating in a large private equity acquisition in January of 2011
2014-2015: Office Naval Research: Constellation as SBIR prime, team lead ONR SBIR, technology: design of low temperature superconducting (4o - 6o Kelvin) RF filters for DC to 100 GHz receive and cosite band separation.
2012-2103: BD lead, developed mid TRL Airdrop Data Link Concept/Demonstrator System. Paradigms: VHF/UHF TDMA, FEC Encoding, GPS, realtime mapping. Technology: Analog Devices Single Chip Transceiver, OLED Displays, ARM Cortex M4, STM32F4 & CubeMX, IAR EWARM, C software. Customer set: USAF / ANG / USA, Allied forces, special operators.
1999-2001 Contractor to Northrop Grumman “XETRON” Team member, NATO AWACS cosite VHF / UHF / SATCOM with frequency hopping radio system, avionics embedded software RF subsystem NATO AWACS. Utilized CPU: TI TMS320 uC, C / Assembly on Code Composer. Applied MIL / USAF / FAA standards.
2012-2015 RF spectrum engineering support to US DoD, provided briefings at the Pentagon, US Air Force Academy, and to Sr. Air National Guard general staff and weapons councils.
2015 Electronic desiger PWB multi-channel isolated com board: design to small quantity production.
2011-2014 Team member (Honeywell) embedded software engineering methane compensator. ARM (STM32L3 processor) IAR EWARM, CMX RTOS, Ultra low power ARM Cortex M3 ST Micro STM32L3.
2013 Team lead, pressure sensor test engineering & modeling over temperature modeling, several VB.NET UI based control systems developed.
2001-2002 Undisclosed government accounts.
2002-2012 Team Lead and SME, software & hardware engineering Automobile aftermarket breathalyzer ECU's. SME level expertise Pt Fuel Cell for breath alcohol analysis (10 years). NXP ARM LPC2138 family, also Silabs "Hot Rod" C8051, assembly language & C/C++ implementations & bootloaders. Hardware (PWB) designs used Mentor Graphics PADS tool. Windows GUI applied using WIN32 C & VB.
2012 – 2013 Electronic design support for using RF for electrokenetic and electrophoretic biologic sensing methods.
1996-2013: Kernel mode software engineering, developed and advanced Constellation's Virtual Serial Port product from Windows 98 through Windows 7, x86 windows device driver system. Paradigms: WDM (Windows Driver Model), NT model, VXD, VSP API definition and development, C and x86 Assembly languages. Documentation and product support: 500+ pages.
1996-2005: Multiple “quick turn” x86 kernel mode drivers, variety of paradigms.
Provided laboratory qualification and engineering support activities in conjunction with qualification to standards sourced by FCC, ISO, CENELEC, NRC-CNRC, DOD/FAA/RTCA, SAE.
Microprocessor software engineering (embedded ARM7, Cortex M0, M3 and M4, x86, 8051, 68HC11, and others) using “C and C++ (Windows)” toolchains from IAR, Keil Tasking and Rowley, bare metal, and RTOS (CMX, iRMX, Win Real Time Priority Class).
Electronic design, schematic capture and layout tool: Mentor Graphics PADS
Applications: GUI's, service, drivers - WIN32 C/C++, VB, some supporting expertise in C#.
Expert level expertise interfaces: I2C, SPI, SMBUS, RS-232, RS-485, RS-422, RS-530, HDLC, SDLC, Sync/Async, PCI, PCIe, FPGA
Key Biograpical Information
Primary Skills Senior Embedded Software Design Engineer
Secondary Skills Electronic Design Engineer.
Home of record West Chester (Cincinnati) Ohio - since 1993
Education BS Computer Science, Minors Math / Statistics,
& 3 years studies electrical/electronic engineering.
Nationality US Citizen
Languages: German – good, English - excellent,
Clearances DoD and agency, Inactive Secret Level, eligible for interim clearance.
Formal Education
BS Computer Science, Eastern Kentucky University Richmond KY, minors statistics & mathematics, three years study electrical engineering and some post graduate coursework in Computer Science. Excellent secondary school education.
Miscellaneous
DOD & Agency Clearances (currently inactive) Member Society Automotive Engineers
Member National Guard Association of US Conversational German language skills
Participates in continuing education coursework FAA certificated instrument aviator
Provides forensics and expert witness testimony SME - Breath Alcohol Analysis
Detailed Biography
Mr. Couch brings extensive consultancy engineering and leadership experience, including work as program manager, and writer servicing over 30 corporate and government accounts. He is known as a passionate, hands-on advocate for solutions for the toughest engineering and "business to business" opportunities. He invested 15+ years managing and leading the Constellation Data Systems electronic engineering organization. For 12 of those years, Constellation operated as the premier supplier of custom electronic and embedded software engineering technology into the automobile hosted alcohol interlock and wireless M2M-telematics space.
Has also served as consultant to organizations such as IBM, Lexmark and Dupont-Conoco. Also during his tenure at Constellation he has interacted with defense and corporate leadership at the most senior levels, has given presentations at the US Air Force Academy, provided technical briefings to presidents at the top of the fortune 500 list, and has working interactions with senior USAF and ANG staff. He also has strong working relationships with well respected DC based legislative consultancies.
He was born a US Citizen in Frankfurt Germany, and has family both in the US and Germany. With 10 years of residence in Germany, he maintains his conversational German skills.
He has managed technical programs for clients from a broad variety of industries, including high value automotive,and aerospace / military. He is a published author, experienced fixed wing aviator, is a subject matter expert in embedded software, electronics, and a court recognized expert in forensic alcohol breath testing. He is most proud of being a father, husband and former soldier.
Articles, Books, Patents and IP Cores
2017, Journal of Food Science, Paper, THEORETICAL EQUATIONS FOR THE HEADSPACE VAPORS IN WET BATH SIMULATORS USED TO CALIBRATE BREATH ALCOHOL TESTERS, Co-author.
Author Windows NT Power Tools Random House Professional Books, New York : Random House Electronic Pub., c1994, with LeBlond and Brazil.
Grant - CA2438036C - Impairment detection and interlock system with tester identification,
Grant - US6748792 - Impairment detection and interlock system with tester identification,
Contributor – Technical Journals, Embedded Systems Journals, Various Articles.
Author Windows Virtual Serial Port Framework, Network Serial Port, circa 1999 – 2010
1Battelle (headquartered in Columbus) serves the national security, health and life sciences, and energy and environmental industries. Battelle is the world’s largest nonprofit research and development organization, with over 22,000 employees at more than 60 locations globally.
2http://www.battelle.org/newsroom/press-releases/discovery-labs-strategic-collaboration-with-battelle
3Consult one of dozens of press articles published on Neurolife recently, such as the New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/health/paralysis-limb-reanimation-brain-chip.html?_r=0